


Dreaming of a True Love's Kiss

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Businesswoman Zayn, Enchanted AU, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Los Angeles, Romance, Slow Burn, Urban Fantasy, princess niall, side larry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Zayn is a no-nonsense career lady and Niall is the literal Disney Princess who uproots her life (and also teaches her a thing or two about birdhouses, and love).





	Dreaming of a True Love's Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thank you to Lauren for running this amazing challenge! I'm so thrilled and joyous to see girl-direction have a revival like this! I was an honor to write for it, and I hope it inspires other girl fics too! 
> 
> This was written for the prompt "enchanted AU." I originally saw it as a larry, but after rewatching the movie for reference, I decided that Niall and Zayn would really make adorable versions of the characters. I decided to change New York to LA to keep it fresh and original, and also removed some of the conflict to focus it back on lesbian/wlw issues. So here this is! I hope folks enjoy it <3 thank you.

Taffeta girl is new, and Zayn is sort of irritated at herself for noticing. 

She works in Hollywood, and the walking bit of her commute from the Sunset and Vine metro station to her company’s building leads her right past the Chinese theater every morning. She prides herself at never batting an eye at whatever madness is happening out front. 

After all, it’s just one of the many baffling, surreal things about LA that she’s had to get used to since her startup expanded and she was relocated from London to manage the Hollywood office. The first few times she passed by, she inevitably stared, wide-eyed and confused, embarrassingly flustered when Jack Skellington tried to talk to her. But since then, she’s gotten over it, willfully forcing herself to avert her eyes, to not be so judgy and European. 

She’s on the way to her office, getting ready for a full day of work, and so are they. Captain Jack Sparrow adjusting his hat and wig while he has an 8 am smoke before the tourists come rolling in, Minnie Mouse sitting beside Bette Davis’s handprint in the cement, tracing it idly while she scrolls through her phone, the head of her mascot costume sitting grimly by her side. Zayn doesn’t know them by their real names, only as their characters, but she recognizes the usual crowd, and sometimes they nod to each other as she power walks to her building in a throng of other commuters, sensible heels clack-clacking on the pavement, face pinched because her bun is often too tight before she loosens it after her morning cuppa. 

It’s Wednesday when she notices Taffeta girl for the first time. 

She knows it’s Wednesday, not only because she has a district meeting to worry about, but because Bumblebee the Transformer is there, and he always arrives early on Wednesdays to snag the best spot right out front, the place where Spider-Man usually reigns supreme. The Bumblebee costume is so spectacular that no one seems to argue; it’s an unspoken rule of Chinese theater turf or something. But _this_ Wednesday, she notices Bumblebee lurking near the back to chat with the Hulk and looking miffed. 

There’s a girl in his spot, a new girl, bustling around as she talks to anyone and everyone, even though there are hardly any tourists here yet, skirts sweeping the sidewalk and leaving stardust in her wake. Women _do_ work outside the theater, but their ranks are significantly smaller than the men, and they’re usually more reserved in their advances; Zayn can imagine how many gross guys view the costumes as an invitation to touch or be generally creepy. This girl, though, seems zero percent concerned about that. She’s running up to anyone she sees and pleading with them about something, playing some extravagant part, face wildly expressive. Zayn hasn't stared in months, but she’s feeling the urge to do so right now. 

It’s just…there's a grittiness to the seasoned regulars outside the Chinese theater in their shabby, modified Party City costumes, all that cheap, sweaty fabric and heavy, greasy makeup streaked at their hairlines because the LA heat is merciless. This girl, though, she’s different. The sun and the city haven’t beaten her down yet, and she glitters as she flits from one stranger to the next, _completely_ in character, lopsided tiara jammed into a mass of haphazard blonde curls that are woven into a towering beehive on her head, voice sing-songy and lilting, like something from a Disney movie. Her dress seems expensive, or at least _heavy,_ the embroidered lace bodice fitted before it explodes out into a massive hoop skirt with layers upon layers of shimmering taffeta. 

It’s theme-park quality, even designer quality, not Chinese theater quality. Plus, she's so _enthusiastic,_ so earnest, which seems like a waste of energy this early in the morning. Zayn knows people will sell their souls for an acting job in LA, and she’s used to seeing people behaving desperately, but rarely does she see desperation paired with _authenticity._ It’s weird. Disconcerting. 

Taffeta girl must notice Zayn watching her because she spins on her delicate, white slipper-heel and races over, waving a gloved hand in the air. “Oh, hello! Yoo-hoo! Miss! Have you…have you seen…,” her voice slows as she approaches, her open, ruddy face breaking into an almost pained expression as she clutches her hands to her chest and exclaims, “Oh, my goodness, you are absolutely _gorgeous!_ Are you a princess, too?!” 

Mortifyingly, Zayn blushes, neck heating up under the linen collar of her blouse. If a man had complimented her, she would have rolled her eyes or ignored him or even possibly flipped him off, but when it’s a girl, she apparently gets all shuddery and embarrassed. Even if said girl is dressed as a princess, looking for tips outside the Chinese theater. “Thank you,” she demurs awkwardly, turning abruptly away and hurrying along, away from the girl who’s still tripping after her. “But m’just on my way to work. No time for autographs, sorry, Cinderella.” It’s the only princess name she can think of, and it _must_ be what this dress is going for. 

“Oh, I’m not Cinderella, my name is Nyliana, I’m the princess of Andalasia _..._ Cindy’s in a totally different kingdom,” she explains, without missing a beat, without an _ounce_ of irony. “But you see, I somehow ended up _here_ on my wedding day, and I’m terribly lost, and I _really_ could use some help finding the way back home,” she babbles, voice breathless. She’s got an accent, almost Irish but not quite, possibly an elaborate affectation of whatever character she’s playing, a character that Zayn has never _heard_ of. _Nyli what now?_ she thinks, wanting to remember in spite of herself. “People haven’t been very nice to me,” Taffeta girl adds then, sounding very sad. 

Zayn has no fucking idea what’s gotten into her, but she stops, sighs, and unsnaps the leather briefcase where her clutch is hiding to fish out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. It’s more than she’s ever given someone as a tip for anything. “M’sorry, miss, I don’t have anything more than this, and I _really_ need to get to work.” 

Ny…whatever her name is just stares at the money placed in her delicate, open palms, like she’s never seen cash before. “Thank you,” she says carefully, tucking the bill into her bodice. “People keep giving me this, and I don’t know what it _is,_ I just want…I want to know how to get home. How to find Shawn.” 

“Shawn?” Zayn echoes, weirdly impressed with this girl’s commitment to the part, shaking her head as she buttons up her briefcase again. She’s weirdly sucked in, compelled. This girl could get a decent job _inside_ the theater, not just outside it. “Actually, don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know...I have to get to work.” She’s about to leave, but then she pauses, turns to Taffeta girl with her sparkling blue eyes, and offers, “Just a suggestion, tone down…all of _this_ a bit until midday, yeah? There will be loads of tourists then, and they’ll all be happy to pay you to pose with their kids and stuff. I don’t know much about acting, but you’re good, I mean, I can tell _that_. Good luck...cheers,” Zayn tacks on, waving a tense, clipped little wave over her shoulder as she goes. 

Taffeta girl calls after her, but she loses it to the sound of traffic and pigeons, their incessant cooing and the thunder of their wings as they take off into the street. 

She thinks of her all through the district meeting, doodles a tiara on her planner, and considers googling Andalasia when she gets home, just so she can figure out what movie the character she's playing is from. 

Again, Zayn is irritated at herself. She never lets anything under her skin, let alone _glitter._ She wonders why, for a moment, she was enticed into giving a twenty away, but then decides she best forget about the whole thing all together, so she does, scribbling over the tiara until is disappears. 

—-

The next morning, Taffeta girl is there again, and Zayn tries _so hard_ to storm by with her head down, but she’s _just_ so persistent. “Oh! Oh, excuse me! Please wait! Erm...you! The beautiful princess who insists she's not a princess!” 

That makes Zayn stop and whip around, preparing herself to tell the girl that she needs to back right off, that her schtick is too _much_ , bordering on unsettling. But all the words dry up in her mouth when she actually turns to _look_ at her. There are tear tracks on her face, her eyes are swollen, and her hair is coming down from its beehive in frizzy curls. On top of that, her fancy dress is torn in places and dirty in others, and she looks like she might have been mugged. Or at least like she spent the night sleeping on Hollywood Boulevard. “Oh, love,” Zayn gasps, shrinking away from her reflexively. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m afraid I’m still quite lost _,”_ the girl wails pitifully. “I keep asking for help, for directions back to Andalasia, but people keep yelling at me. Or giving me these green slips of paper,” she cries, pulling down her bodice to reveal a (somewhat impressive) wad of cash wedged between her tits. Zayn’s heart picks up in her chest, and she cautiously steps back. 

“Put that away,” she hisses, worried, and it occurs to her for the first time since she met this girl that she might not actually be acting at all. Something might be seriously wrong with her, she might be in trouble. And what sort of woman would Zayn be to _leave_ her out here in Hollywood, fending for herself and spouting nonsense? “What did you say your name was?” she asks, pained.

“Nyliana,” Taffeta girl answers, smiling sweetly. “But you can call me Niall, if that's too many syllables. Or Nyla. Or Lania, or—”

“Niall is fine,” Zayn says quickly, taking the girl’s elbow in hand and steering her gently off the sidewalk, where they're blocking traffic and garnering stares. “Look, Niall, did you sleep here last night? And do you…do you have any family? Friends? Anyone from Anda-whatever looking for you?” 

“Andalasia,” Niall corrects, eyes wide, blue, blinking. “And, yes, I did sleep here, on a cardboard box over by that wall until the yellow-and-black robot man came and yelled at me and told me I was in his place and that people had to earn their spot out here, and I _told_ him that I was just trying to get home, and that my Prince Shawn was coming to find me—”

“Prince Shawn,” Zayn hears, latching onto it. “Who’s that? Can we call him?” 

“He’s my husband-to-be,” Niall tells her very matter-of-factly. 

“Great,” Zayn grinds out, simultaneously relieved that there’s someone to account for this girl and mildly enraged at this Shawn guy for managing to lose track of his fiancée so spectacularly that she’s running around Hollywood _overnight,_ thoroughly convinced that she’s a princess who has no idea what money is. Zayn’s well aware of the shortcomings of men, but as much as she dislikes them, she needs to get Niall back to hers so that Niall can resume her medication or whatever, and Zayn can stop actively worrying about the well-being of a complete stranger. “Does he have a mobile number, love?” 

“A what?” Niall asks, distracted as a very Hollywood-looking woman in tall boots and a billowy white robe walks by. “She’s beautiful,” she gushes, having already forgotten about her prince, apparently. 

“A mobile…never mind. Let’s, erm, get you somewhere where you can shower and eat and regroup, yeah?” Zayn suggests, deciding in a rare moment of spontaneity to take advantage of the fact that she’s her own boss so she does _not_ have to go into the office just yet. After all, reuniting possibly sick girls with their possibly shitty boyfriends is more important, right?

She calls an Uber and holds onto Niall’s arm to keep her from chasing after every lady who passes by. In the five minutes it takes for a car to arrive, Zayn is questioning not only the existence of this Shawn fellow but Niall’s interest in and attraction to men _all together._ She’s _so_ interested in women; not even Zayn, who’s a bona fide lesbian, is _so_ interested in women. She literally has to stop Niall in her tracks from complimenting every single woman who walks past them. 

Zayn’s thoroughly exasperated by the time she tugs Niall and her mountains of taffeta into the car with her. Niall is pretty and wide-eyed and charming in this strange way, but something is probably not okay with her, which makes Zayn feel bad for noticing all of that in the first place. She should be _helping this girl,_ not wanting to tug her dress up over her cleavage to keep people from ogling her, not wanting to hold her hands and smooth her hair and pin her down like a butterfly to a cork board. And there’s nothing _weird_ about wanting to do any of that, it’s not like Zayn has ulterior motives. She’s just...she’s worried and she’s confused and she’s seen a lot of weird shit in the whole of her time in Hollywood, but never anything quite like this. 

“So, tell me about this Shawn guy,” she asks Niall, who’s busy playing with the air conditioning controls and buttons in the back seat, murmuring a quiet _magic_ to herself as something lights up. “What does he look like?” she presses, hoping for more information, something _helpful._

_“_ Erm, well, he’s tall, and handsome and muscular and has brown hair. And blue eyes...wait, maybe brown eyes,” she muses, pressing her index finger to the corner of her cupid’s bow mouth and looking up at Zayn, smiling so earnestly. It’s _wild,_ how earnest this girl seems, how not-crazy at the same time she’s clearly _definitely_ crazy. “You have beautiful brown eyes.” 

“You don't know the color of your own fiancé’s eyes?” Zayn asks, skeptical. 

“Well, we've only known each other for a day,” Niall explains, as if that’s an acceptable answer, fiddling with the vents so that they're blowing directly on her faintly freckled cheeks. Or maybe they aren’t freckles but a cluster of moles that Zayn could connect to a constellation if she were to draw on this girl’s cheek. She’s horrified at herself for even thinking such a thing; she _really_ needs her morning coffee. But then the full scope of what Niall just said hits her, and she's _more_ horrified by that. “You can't get married to someone you've only known a day,” she insists, suddenly even more worried. Who is this Shawn, calling himself a prince and taking advantage of the trusting nature of this _truly disturbed girl?_ She’s gonna fight him. It’s the only way. 

“It’s true love,” Niall smiles easily at Zayn, leaning over so that the wad of cash in her tits is visible where it presses into her pale, flushed skin. 

_It’s not,_ Zayn wants to tell her, so worried for this girl that her heart is pounding in her chest. But she doesn’t want to break such awful news to someone so vulnerable, doesn't want Niall’s cheerful, optimistic innocence to be troubled by the possibility of her prince being someone _dangerous._ So instead of getting personal, she keeps it general. “True love isn't real,” is what comes out. And it’s not exactly what she means, even if deep down, she believes it. 

Niall frowns, pouting with her pretty lips. Zayn’s heart stops. “It’s absolutely real,” she says huffily. “And I’m terribly, terribly sorry for whatever happened to you to make you think it isn’t.” 

Zayn hates that hearing such a thing makes her throat feel thick. She sits back, pulls her sunglasses on to hide her eyes, and stares at the ceiling. “Nothing happened...I just live in the real world, not Andalusia.” 

“Andalasia,” Niall corrects, reaching out and taking Zayn’s hand in her own. Zayn recoils before flinching, pulling away completely with her heart in her throat, sweat suddenly beading at her temples. “And I just realized that I never got your name?” 

“Zania,” she answers, voice clipped, made quiet and sharp by the proximity of her heart pounding away so close in her throat. “Zayn for short.” 

“Beautiful,” Niall sighs, clearly fond of that word, reaching _again_ for Zayn’s hand and squeezing, as if she wasn't scared away by her initial balking. “Thank you...for this,” she says, sounding like she means it. “You’re the first person who’s actually helped me since I arrived in this awful place.” 

And that should make Zayn feel better, but it doesn’t. 

—-

It feels very surreal, arriving at her apartment with Niall and her taffeta in tow, gently guiding her to the lift, watching her press buttons and make faces at herself in the mirror. At this point, Zayn has fully accepted the fact that Niall is _not_ a method actress but someone in dire need of professional help. She's feeling over her head but at the same time _confused_ because Niall doesn't _seem_ ill, really, as much as she seems muddled. She doesn't seem like a normal girl who thinks she’s a princess from an alternate realm as much as she seems like an actual princess. Zayn keeps wondering if _she’s_ the one who’s stepped into a fairytale, if _she’s_ the one who’s crazy. 

It’s disconcerting, to say the least. She tries to keep all her thoughts practical as she steers Niall from the lift to her flat. “This is where I live,” she spells out, gesturing to the living room as she opens the door. “Sorry it’s so messy, I wasn’t exactly expecting company.” 

“I think it’s charming,” Niall announces, spinning like a fucking ballerina in a music box. “And, wow, look at this view! So many tall buildings,” she sighs, pressing her hands to the bay window and gazing out over LA. 

Zayn creeps up behind her, nervous now that she’s home, like she doesn't know what to do. “It’s extra pretty at night,” she promises. “It gets all lit up, like fireflies. You’ll love it, but right now, you need to eat some food for me, shower, and maybe sleep, yeah? Bet you’re tired.” 

Niall’s yawn is comically huge, arms stretching up toward the ceiling. Her dress is crushed into her armpits, and Zayn winces in sympathy, imagining what a terrifically uncomfortable dress that would be to sleep in, regardless of whether you were using a cardboard box for bedding. “I _am_ sleepy and hungry,” Niall announces, stomping over to the couch and sitting down, dwarfed by her skirts. “What do you have to eat?” 

“Erm,” Zayn mumbles, kicking off her heels and padding to the kitchen in her nylon-stockinged feet. “Frozen things…frozen Lean Cuisine meals, looks like. Sorry, I have a bit of a bachelorette pad here, no one comes over very often.” 

“You don't have a prince?” Niall calls from the couch, voice so unassuming, so soft, so pretty. Zayn cringes, making a face at her reflection in the microwave door as she shoves in some angel hair pasta with chicken and lemon. 

“No, I don’t. I was engaged once, just like you...to a man,” she admits from the doorway. Seems safe to talk about Liam, somehow, in the presence of this girl who seems incapable of true judgment. “But I, erm, sort of broke his heart. Realized a few months before the wedding that I could never be what he needed me to be, that he could never be what _I_ wanted, so we called it off. And here I am, a few years later.” 

When she returns to the living room with a steaming bowl of noodles, she finds Niall crying, eyes wide, upset, and her heart leaps up into her throat. Before she can ask what’s wrong, Niall explodes with, “That’s so _sad,”_ her voice ripped up, tattered. “Didn’t you love him?” 

“I loved him, I guess. He was my best friend in a lot of ways,” Zayn shrugs, sitting down next to Niall and crushing taffeta in the process as she twirls some pasta around a fork and offers it to her. “But I wasn’t _in_ love with him. It’s fine, really...it’s better this way, if I’m being honest.” 

Niall sniffles as she takes a thoughtful bite. “But what’s the difference, then, between loving and being in love?” 

“Do you not...have that difference, you know, where you’re from?” Zayn asks, tucking her feet up under her. The high-waisted grey wool skirt that she's wearing cuts into her stomach a bit, so she unzips it; she's pretty sure Niall won’t notice or care. “Here, loving means you really care about someone...you want them to be happy and all that. But being _in_ love…well. I’ve never been in love, so I can't really say, but I think it means wanting to be around someone all the time, make your future with them, kiss them. All that.” 

“I love Shawn,” Niall says, gesturing with her fork. “ _And_ I’m in love with him. I think.” 

Zayn winces and shrugs because, _well,_ she’s not going to argue with someone in Niall’s state. She’s not going to argue with girls who like men ever again. It was too much work and energy for her to figure herself out—too little, too late—so helping other girls seems beyond her paygrade. There are other, more experienced and confident lesbians for that, she feels _useless_ when she nearly _married_ a man, spent years trying to convince herself that safe, comforting apathy and general getting along was _love._ She knows that's not love, now, doubts the existence of such a thing, period, but she won’t tell Niall that. She’s going to stuff Niall with pasta and offer her some of her own silk PJs and her fold-out couch so that she can get to the office for a few hours and make sure everything’s alright before coming back and figuring out the best course of action for locating Shawn or calling 5150. Whatever seems like a better plan. 

Niall’s eyelids are drooping, and she’s sagging against the back of the couch as she chews. “This is delicious,” she murmurs as she stabs at the plastic bowl with her fork. “Thank you, you know, for being hospitable, for letting me into your home…all of it.” 

Zayn reaches over and smooths Niall’s hair out of her face, hardly realizing she’s doing it before snatching her hand back, heart pounding. “You’re welcome,” she squeaks, voice sounding pinched as she adjusts her blouse. “Erm, the loo is the second door down the hall on your right, and there's sparkling water in the fridge, so help yourself. I need to get back to work for a few hours, but you're welcome to shower and sleep on the couch in the meantime.” 

Zayn leaves some PJs and a towel on the closed toilet lid, hands shaking for no apparent reason as she grabs her keys and leaves a possibly crazy girl in her flat. She doesn't know _why_ she's not worried that something awful will happen, but she just knows that it won’t. That no matter what's going on with Niall of Andalasia, it’s not dangerous, it’s not a threat. 

“Bye!” Niall calls sleepily from the couch, her blinks slow and sweet. She blows a kiss to Zayn, and Zayn doesn't know what that means, but she thinks about it the entire walk to the metro, stomach in knots. 

—-

Zayn comes home from work to a house full of literal pigeons carrying her dirty bras, one by one, to the washing machine. This is the moment at which she realizes she might be in over her head. 

Providing assistance or asylum to a mentally ill girl is one thing. But when she has to dart out of a fucking _peacock’s_ pathway as he waddles across her floor to chase down her seldom-used Roomba in a transparent attempt to look at his own reflection, Zayn knows that mentally ill girls don't possess magical powers to compel animals to do household chores. It just doesn't add up. _Disney princesses_ compel animals to do household chores. Disney princesses appear from nowhere wearing elaborate ball gowns, Disney princesses have no practical use for money and fall in love with princes after a single day. It’s absurd, but it’s somehow more logical than anything else Zayn can come up with to understand anything that's happened since this cloud of taffeta traipsed into her life: Niall is a Disney princess. 

“Erm,” she stammers, stepping over a river of cockroaches who are scrubbing the grout in her kitchen tile with Q-tips. She’s horrified but also impressed. “Niall?” 

A sweet singing voice carries through the hallway, and Zayn follows it. Of course Princess Niall sings beautifully. Of course she charmed some LA sewer rats into taking some Lysol wipes to Zayn’s grimy sink. Zayn might be a perfectionist at her job, but her house definitely suffers from those late nights at the office. She’s never seen it so fucking _sparkling,_ and all because she took a _princess in?_ She cannot compute. Her brain is short-circuiting. 

“Oh, there you are!” Niall exclaims as Zayn side-steps nervously into her own bedroom, one of her heels brandished in a fist in case any of these animals are rabid. She doesn't think they are—they appear to be shockingly civilized—but still, better safe than sorry. “I’m just tidying up a bit, since you've been so very kind,” Niall chirps, and when Zayn looks up, she realizes that Niall’s new homemade dress appears to have been cut out of the damask drapes Zayn brought all the way from London when she moved. She’d be upset, but it’s such a lovely, masterfully sewn gown that she’s mostly just stunned by Niall’s many princessy talents. She's a seamstress. She’s a singer. She’s a rat-charmer. 

Zayn blinks. “You’re a princess, like, an actual one. You were telling the truth,” she blurts, sitting down on the edge of her (beautifully made) bed because her knees are suddenly quite weak. 

Niall flits over to her in a flourish of damask. “Technically, I’m not _exactly_ a princess yet,” she admits, gesturing in the air with a feather duster that Zayn didn’t even know she owned. “I will be...once I marry my prince, my Shawn,” she explains, spinning on her heel before she trounces over to the window, which she throws open so a whole flock of pigeons and crows can dump the mop water they’re collectively carrying in, ah yes, in Zayn’s biggest saucepan. Unless she’s boiling her dildo or her diva cup, she hardly ever uses it, so she guesses it’s not that big of a deal to have it commandeered by birds for other purposes. “I bet Shawn is looking for me right now,” Niall sighs wistfully, eyes sparkling. 

“Let’s hope so,” Zayn says, face in her hands. A princess, in her apartment. Cockroaches, in her sink. Peacocks, pecking at her Roomba. Her curtains, chopped up and sewn into a dress. She doesn’t even know where to begin with fixing all of this, but if that prince doesn't appear soon to collect Niall and take her back where she’s supposed to be, she’s gonna _have to_ start considering some alternative course of action. It was almost easier when she thought Niall was just a lost, sick girl. There are ways to proceed with that, professionals to call, resources out in the world. But there _aren’t_ any for situations like this. What do you _do_ when you end up saddled with someone from an alternate dimension? There’s no guidebook or social services or rescue organizations for this one. 

Zayn is at least certain about one thing: she can’t release Niall back to the wild. She’ll get eaten alive. Or sent to jail. Or taken advantage of. Or hospitalized. And that’s not what she _needs,_ she needs to be sent back to her universe or timeline or whatever. 

“Okay,” she exhales, before taking a deep breath in again and blinking miserably at the remains of her curtains. “You can stay here, with me, until he finds you, yeah? We just need…we need to lay down a few house rules.” 

“Rules? What are those?” Niall asks curiously, plopping down beside Zayn. Her eyes are so wide, so blue, and she smells like cotton candy and honeysuckle under the layer of Windex. It’s disconcerting.

Zayn smiles in spite of herself. “Andalasia doesn't have rules? Sounds like nice place or, you know...a chaotic one.” 

“It’s beautiful. There are trees everywhere and gorgeous sunsets and a green wishing pool deep in the valley of—”

“Rules,” Zayn repeats gently, tapping her fingers softly on Niall’s wrist to rein her back in. “They’re things you have to do, like, to make sure everyone is safe and happy. And if you want to stay with me, we have to be safe and happy.” 

“I want to stay with you, I really do,” Niall assures her eagerly, nodding. “Tell me the rules.” 

“Okay, so rule one: no wild animals in the house. You’ve gotta make them leave,” she adds, gesturing loosely and awkwardly to the birds and the roaches and the single coyote who recently padded out of the laundry room and keeps licking her lips every time the peacock gets near her. “I know you’re just trying to clean, but animals…well. It’s actually sort of unsanitary,” she whispers, not wanting to offend anyone. 

Niall nods and complies. “Thank you all ever so much! You can go back to your homes now! Thank you! Thank you!!” she yells, clapping as the birds and roaches dispel out the window and the coyote, horrifyingly, chases the screaming peacock down the hallway and hopefully out the front door. Zayn shudders to think of them loose in her complex, but she also has bigger problems at hand. “Okay, wonderful, moving on. Rule two: as lovely as that dress is, you can’t just use fabric from around the house to make clothes. You can borrow mine until we go shopping to get you something.” 

“You like the dress?” Niall asks, spreading her palms over the bodice. 

Zayn does like the dress, in spite of herself. The way it hugs Niall’s hips and the curve of her waist, the way it fits her so perfectly because she _made it for herself._ She’s terribly pretty, but Zayn’s not even checking her out, more like she’s admiring her self-awareness, her artistry. Niall is magical. Like, actual magic exudes from her being and her movement, and it makes it very difficult for Zayn to _not_ like the things she does, even if they result in her drapes being mutilated. She can feel her face softening up as she says, “Yes, very much. It’s, like…crazy impressive, actually. But those were for keeping the sunlight out, not for making dresses, so no more of that, please.” 

“Understood,” Niall says, looking only a little disappointed. “You’re very generous, offering me your clothes. And your house. And your sun-keeping-out things. Any other rules?” 

Zayn thinks for a moment, chewing her lip. “That’s it...for now,” she decides, even though she’s more than certain things will come up, but they'll just have to burn those bridges when they get to them. Before she has time to say anything else, Niall _throws her arms_ around Zayn’s neck, kicking the air and squealing. Zayn freezes. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’m sure Shawn will be _very_ grateful to you for keeping me safe. I certainly am, anyway,” Niall babbles, still squeezing Zayn tightly, face mushed against her chest. She can probably feel the rapid-fire beat of her heart under her cheek, just past her sternum. Zayn hardly has tits at all, so it's not like there’s much padding to muffle the sound, but if Niall notices, she doesn’t say anything, she just _finally_ releases Zayn, cheeks pink. “You really are the nicest person I’ve met. I’m forever indebted.” 

“No debt,” Zayn tells her weakly, standing up on shaky legs and wandering to her shower, half-afraid she’ll find roaches pulling hair out of the drain or something equally disgusting but also not even caring. She just needs to stand under the hot shower spray and wash away the weirdness of the day. Get her thoughts in order. 

She hopes this Shawn fellow makes quick work of LA. After all, she’s not sure how long she can keep this up. 

—-

Turns out, she can keep it up quite a while. 

Niall and Zayn fall into a shockingly easy rhythm. Zayn feels like she’s in the _Odd Couple_ or something, but at the same time, it’s almost like Niall has always been here, flitting around her life, trailing glitter. Or like there was always room for her, at least. Like all Zayn’s bachelorette pad needed was a girl who has memorized every bit of music she’s ever heard and sings it without shame, a girl who does the dishes as soon as she dirties them, a girl who laughs at every stupid joke on _Friends,_ who gets quiet and leans in close to Zayn instead of snapping at her to speak up when she gets quiet or mumbly. 

Niall makes Zayn less shy about her own singing voice. She makes Zayn want to be tidier, to pick up after herself. She makes Zayn feel less dorky about her sense of humor. Like, she’s gotten so much _sillier_ since Niall started staying with her, drinking wine at night after work and imitating her coworkers’ voices as she recounts her day, Niall on the edge of her seat, absolutely _beside herself_ with excitement at whatever Marsha from accounting said over coffee this morning, gasping at all the right moments when Zayn reads aloud a particularly nasty email from the crusty old boss in London HQ. Niall inspires her to unwind and vent instead of bullying herself to keep every work stress in, and as a result, she’s loosened up quite a bit. It's really nice, actually. Even if Niall still does weird shit like put ketchup in her ice cream and cry every time she sees a dead bug. 

She just makes Zayn so bizarrely, unfairly, mystifyingly, _incandescently happy_. 

It’s weird. Zayn would be freaked out if Niall were just a regular girl, but she’s had to compartmentalize the whole princess-from-an-alternate-reality thing already, so any feelings she has regarding Niall seem justified, somehow, or at least easily explained away. If she’s happy it’s because she has a slice of another world close enough to touch, not because she’s, like, falling in love or anything crazy like that. 

Like, how is she _supposed_ to feel about having a Disney princess as a sudden, unexpected roommate? How can she possibly be expected to react? She’s trying to give herself a pass for the happiness. After all, it’s been a while since she’s felt something like it at all. Niall’s temporary, so she figures it’s okay to bask in the odd, magical sort of joy she brings while she’s here. 

During the week, Zayn is actually _eager_ to come home because there’s someone there to greet her, to talk to her, to share a meal with her. They sit on the couch together and watch _Friends_ reruns and eat takeaway, and Niall snuggles up next to Zayn and asks her about work, looking cuddly in the borrowed hoodies and too-short sweatpants that ride up her calves, the majority of Zayn’s clothes running a little tight on her. It’s odd, how comfortable this routine becomes after only just a week or so. How natural it feels to protest fruitlessly when Niall climbs up onto the back of the couch with Zayn between her knees to give her French braids instead of her usual bun. How natural it feels to nod off halfway through their third episode of the night, head drifting to Niall’s shoulder, the smell of honeysuckle drifting around her like a dream. 

Then, on the weekends, they go out. Zayn hasn't really had the energy for doing too much since moving here, but she feels like she's explored more of LA in the last few weeks than she has in the last two _years._ She takes Niall to the Santa Monica Pier so that she can ride the carousel, run along the beach, get her toes all sandy, and eat her first churro. Zayn watches and laughs so hard that her face hurts because Niall’s laughter is contagious, and she laughs at everything. Everything except for the one-legged seagull she spots on the beach, which makes her cry. She’s so sensitive and emotional, but she bounces from those emotions rapid-fire, never concealing or lying or pretending, just _feeling._ It’s inspiring, actually, especially for Zayn, whose primary coping mechanism for the whole of her life has always been to stuff everything down until she cant take it anymore, and then, to cry alone in the shower, where no one can see her. 

Niall is so open about her tears that it makes Zayn feel like she could be, too. If she felt like crying, that is. 

She takes her downtown one weekend, too, and they eat ramen in Grand Central Market and take Angels Flight up to the Cathedral, and the whole time the tiny orange cart is rattling up on its cables, Niall shrieks and squeezes Zayn’s arm and stares out the cloudy windows with wide, blue eyes like it's Christmas morning. Zayn even takes pictures, which she used to really enjoy doing but sort of stopped doing after she moved. Seeing Niall so excited about stuff makes her excited, too, makes her want to capture what’s beautiful about this city that she thought was so ugly before, until she saw it through Niall’s eyes. 

It’s not _all_ terrible here, she's realizing. It’s sunny all the time, and the beach is just an hour away, the sea glittering and blue and endless, Niall dancing in the surf, wearing a yellow sundress that Zayn hasn't touched since she left Liam and stopped wearing dresses all together. 

It feels weird, all of it, but it feels good, too. _Really_ good. It would feel sort of like falling in love, if Niall was just some girl and not a princess with a prince searching through the fabric of space and time to find her and bring her home. It would feel sort of like falling in love, if Zayn knew what that felt like, but she doesn’t. This is just a guess. 

There are times, though, when she's lying awake in bed after _Friends_ , staring at her ceiling in her silk PJs and missing Niall even though she only saw her five minutes ago, that she catches herself thinking terrible, impractical thoughts. Like, _I hope this Prince Shawn never comes to LA. I hope she can stay always._

She always chases these thoughts away quickly, though, throwing herself onto her side, shoving her head under her pillow, and humming something distracting. It’s silly to wish for a happily ever after when you live in the real world, not Andalasia. 

—-

The Monday of the fourth week with no Prince Shawn, Zayn has a very vivid kissing dream about Niall and wakes up shaky and sweating. She needs to call in backup. She needs a second opinion. She needs _someone_ with whom she can be fully honest about her predicament, and that leaves only one person: her closest mate and lesbian advice expert, Louis Tomlinson.

Louis and her girlfriend Harry are Zayn’s only honest-to-god friends here in LA. While somewhat drunk at a work party in a bar and very fed up with late capitalism, she heard a distinctively British “Oi, Oi!!” cut across the room, and it sounded like home, so she stumbled through the throng of investors until she found Louis, who was rowdy, friendly, and _very_ clearly gay. It was insanely comforting, and through Louis, she met Harry, and although Zayn found it hard as a busy introvert to make room for socializing, she's grateful she has at least two friends on speed-dial in case of princess-related emergencies.

She likes Louis and Harry because they’re both English lesbians, and she, as an English lesbian, needs that in her life. Plus, Harry and Louis move at her speed, meaning they’re always tired and never want to go to clubs, so she doesn’t feel pressured to actually leave the house, she can just invite them over and they can all split a bottle of wine and play board games or watch Illegal streams of _GBBO_ or the _X Factor_ and pretend they’re not a ten-hour flight away from home. Zayn’s happy to third-wheel and listen to stories about their life together, which is particularly entertaining and weird because Louis’s a pro-footballer and Harry’s officially her PA in addition to being her girlfriend, but no one knows about the girlfriend part. Louis has this fake boyfriend who is, like, a gay Brazilian model, and they go to a handful of events together, but everyone magically believes they’re a genuinely loved-up couple, which blows Zayn’s mind. She doesn't know how anyone buys it, but they do. 

Louis has been doing football-related travel things for the last month, but she texted that she was back in town a few days ago, and that Zayn should meet her and Harry in Silver Lake for drinks, so they loosely planned for the weekend. But drastic times call for drastic measures, and Zayn considers subconscious snogging fantasies pretty drastic times, so as she chugs her coffee and quietly picks her way around the flat so as to not wake Niall, who’s snoring from a mountain of blankets on the couch, she texts Louis. 

_I know we said saturday, but i am a proper mess and need advice. u free tonight? xx_ she hammers out, lips pursed at the edge of her thermos. 

_jesus i can't believe/hate that I'm awake early enough to get this text. fuck jet lag, mate. and yeee i can be free tonight!!! What's the emergency and does it require weed,_ Louis texts back, and Zayn sighs in relief. She thought she’d have to wait all day and worry anxiously and be plagued with invasive memories of how soft and sweet Niall’s dream-lips were, but step one of her action plan has at least been put into motion.

Zayn doesn’t usually get high on weekdays, but drastic times, drastic measures, etc. _I very much need u to bring the weed. emergency is too weird for text. involves metaphysics and possibly time travel and also snogging dreams. will disclose more tonight. also can u bring harry? i have a new roommate, who is sort of part of the problem (will explain later promise) but I can only talk if she's out of the flat for awhile._

As she waits for the response, she can practically hear Louis’s astounded snort, can very nearly see her mouth hanging open, her wide blues eyes plastered open in surprise. Louis’s very expressive and generally quite nosy, so Zayn knows she doesn’t fancy being told she has to wait. But she also has literally no idea whatsoever how to paraphrase her situation. _I picked up this girl I thought was homeless and maybe having a manic episode in front of the Chinese theater a few weeks ago, but it turns out she’s actually a fucking princess and now I'm starting to catch feelings. Did I mention she's a princess?_ Yeah, it won't fly, even with Louis, who is twice as accepting as she is nosy. 

_fucking hell this sounds good. yeah ill have Hazza come take her out for dinner or summat. also, if you care to tell, Is this a roommate or a ~* rooooommate*~ ;)_

Zayn’s cheeks get hot. _A roommate. but also it’s very hard to explain. promise, more details tonight._

_Waiting with baited breath, Z. see u after u get off xx_

Zayn pockets her phone, sighs, and tries not to think about honeysuckle. 

—-

After an excruciatingly long work day, she Ubers home to save time, arriving frazzled and nervous, even though she _knows_ the kiss was just a dream, just a fantasy. She’s still anxious about being in Niall’s space, though, smelling her smell, nearly collapsing under the force of her hug because Niall always hugs like hugging is a wrestling match or something, throwing her weight dramatically into Zayn’s skinny arms. Sure enough, as the door clicks open, Niall is upon her, thick blonde hair pushed back into a bandana, one of Zayn’s shirts loose and stained in some sort of…wood stain? “Hi!” Niall announces, squeezing Zayn and smelling of turpentine. “I decided to take up carpentry today. I promise I didn’t ruin any of your chairs...this wood is from the wine box, and I had Jody from the room down the hall order me some other supplies with her magic box.” 

Niall knows by now that mobile phones are called mobile phones, as she's become pretty adept at using them to order groceries (and apparently carpentry supplies?), but she still always refers to them as “magic boxes” because it tends to makes Zayn giggle. Zayn’s too tense to giggle right now, though, so she just weakly hugs Niall back and says, “ _Carpentry?_ And Jody got these for you? I didn't realize Home Depot had an app for...,” she trails off, surveying the carnage on her kitchen floor as she pulls back. There’s a saw and lumber and stain and a hammer and nails, and everything is everywhere, but Niall always cleans up, so she supposes she should relax. “Nice birdhouse,” she adds, impressed as her eyes fall on the finished product. 

“Not bad for a first attempt, huh?” Niall says proudly, standing there in a worn-out pair of Zayn’s old mom-jeans. She sounds more and more like a normal person from this dimension every day when she talks, but _still,_ there’s something strange and endearing about her sheer, unashamed excitement. It makes Zayn want to bundle her up in a blanket burrito and keep every ugly thing in the world away from her, every single fly from her honey. 

“Not bad at all, love, looks beautiful,” Zayn sighs honestly, rubbing her face with her hands. “Remember my friends I told you about, Lou and Harry? Lou is gonna come over for a bit tonight to talk to me about something personal, and Harry’s gonna take you out. That alright?” 

“Oh! Yes, of course! I can’t wait to meet your friends, I’m sure if you love them then they must be as wonderful as you are,” Niall gushes, hands on her waist while she beams up at Zayn. There’s a smudge of something dirty on her nose, and she looks so cute right now, like a farm girl or something, not a princess at all, and for one dangerous second, Zayn forgets she’s one in the first place. 

Then, it all comes back in a rush, and she feels ashamed. “Get washed up, I guess...can’t go to dinner in that.” 

Niall kisses Zayn’s cheek, spins away, and Zayn sinks into the couch. She can’t wait for Louis (and her weed) to take the edge off some of this madness. 

—-

“So,” Louis starts in after exhaling a big, billowing cloud of green-smelling smoke from her nose, blinking placidly. “Tell me everything.” She’s sitting on Zayn’s couch with her knees bent to her chest, her socked feet rubbing together like a very comfy cricket while Zayn paces nervously back and forth past the coffee table, taking small, clipped huffs off the blunt that Louis painstakingly hand-rolled for her. Niall is off with Harry at the Beverly Center, shopping for some clothes of her own that she didn't make from drapes, and Zayn already misses her and is anxious and regretful about this whole telling-Louis thing.

“Are you sure they’re okay?” Zayn asks, gaze shifting to the door. “Harry won’t lose her? She gets easily lost because she just…she sort of runs off and flits about. Like a butterfly.” 

“Jesus, Z,” Louis rasps between coughs. “Will you sit the fuck down? You’re gonna give me hives. And, yes, they're fine. Ni…Niall is her name? She’s not a child, and H isn’t as as much of a space cadet as I make her out to be, _promise_ she’s competent, now sit the fuck down.”

Zayn complies, reluctantly. She’s not so sure about Harry. She _knows_ she means well, but Louis has shared some horror stories about her organizational skills that give Zayn nightmares. Harry looks like one of those high-powered, Posh Spice-type corporate femmes in her Gucci, but it’s all an act to pass her off sufficiently as Louis’s assistant. In reality, she’s sort of clumsy and dorky and good at cooking roasts and throwing axes in Vegas and drinking everyone around her under the table. Though helpful skills in some very specific circumstances, none of them will actually come in handy for Niall-wrangling, so Zayn’s anxiety is in hyperdrive. “Lou, I don’t even know where to _start.”_

_“_ You can start by taking another fat hit. And some deep breaths. And then explaining how this butterfly girl ended up in your flat wearing your clothes but _not_ being your girlfriend while H and I were away,” Louis demands, eyebrows raised in skeptical arches. 

“Ugh,” Zayn mumbles as she forces herself to smoke more, to actually hold it in her lungs so that she feels the effects. It does help a little. A familiar haze begins to crawl in from the sides of her vision, a sticky softness dulling the edges of reality so that she can actually slow down enough to find the words to confess to Louis that she’s shacking up with a literal interdimensional princess. “It’s gonna sound a bit…a bit mad,” she admits, throat sore from the weed, voice hoarse.

“Spit it out, love, come on. You’ve heard some of the shite I’ve been through, can’t be much weirder than the time I walked in on me fake boyfriend having an orgy with four footballer blokes in our hotel room after a press conference, yeah?” Louis muses, shooting her a cheeky grin.

Zayn swallows, inhales, and blurts it out before she loses her nerve: “She’s a princess from an alternate reality.” 

It sounds absurd, hanging there in the air between them, but Louis widens her eyes without saying anything judgmental, which is more than Zayn expected. There’s a moment of silence before Louis shrugs and says, “Alright, then. Another dimension. You’re sure she’s not just—”

“Crazy?! Of course that’s what I thought at first! I saw her outside the theater and—”

“Z, don't say crazy. S’ablist,” Louis interjects, and Zayn doesn't know if she should be relieved or infuriated that Louis’s acting like this is a normal conversation, butting in to correct her when she’s not being PC enough. She shakes her fringe out of her eyes thoughtfully and adds, “So what changed? What makes you think her story is legit?” 

“Well…,” Zayn starts, rubbing her cheeks with her palms before worrying her long black curls with nervous, compulsive fingers. “I know it sounds mad—”

“Mad’s ableist, too.” 

“ _I know it sounds implausible,_ but she has…she has, like, magical powers, Lou. After I brought her home, with _every_ intention of calling the hospital or social services or something, I came home from work, and she’d used some weird princess mojo to call _literal_ cockroaches and pigeons and shit to _clean the loo._ And I just…well. M’not an idiot, and just because I can’t understand or explain something doesn't mean it’s real, yeah?” 

Louis stares at her for a long time, nodding sagely. It goes on too long, and Zayn gets antsy, shifting her weight back and forth so she doesn’t explode. “You must be sitting there thinking _you_ need to call the hospital or social services.” 

“Nah, no, no. No. Not at all, babe,” Louis sighs, before taking another long, slow hit. “Remember that place H and I had for, like, two minutes in Silver Lake? Nice posh house with a pool and the succulent garden?” 

Zayn does remember. “Yeah, last summer...you moved because you said the neighbors were awful.” 

“Well, the neighbors were shit, true, but that wasn't the whole story. We left because that fucking house was haunted,” she says, mouth twisting into a crooked, almost-solemn half-smile. Zayn must look shocked because Louis shrugs and waves her hand through the air easily. “We didn’t tell anyone, so don't get hurt feelings over it. We didn't know _how_ to tell people, we could hardly believe it was happening ourselves. This spirit, whoever it was, kept scratching us in our sleep, slamming our doors, stopping our clocks…the whole horror-movie schtick. We called an exorcist, had to poke around on corners of the Internet I didn’t even know _existed…_ like, it was a whole thing. Very dramatic. So, I’ve gotten a bit more open-minded than I used to be about this sort of stuff” 

“God, Louis…a haunting. M’sorry, that sounds…well. Sounds awful.” 

“Oh, it was. Genuinely terrifying, really...much shittier than having some cute blonde from a magical realm or whatever appear in your flat. I’d consider you the lucky one, if we’re comparing our experiences with the paranormal and all,” she winks. “Speaking of which…do you like her?” 

Zayn sputters, cheeks suddenly hot. She’s so taken aback that she initially thinks she _misunderstood_ Louis because _surely_ she can’t mean what she sounds like she means. “I—what?!” 

“Niall, obviously. Do you have some fairytale crush on her? There’s got to be a reason why you’re acting so simultaneously mopey and jittery.” 

“I thought I explained the whole _‘_ saddled with a visitor from another dimension and no idea how to get her back’ thing…isn’t that enough to warrant some jitters?” Zayn defends. 

“I dunno Zayn, is it?” Louis counters lightly, making a face that Zayn finds very irritating. “All I’m saying is that I hardly ever see you _so_ bent out of shape about someone, like, worried about them, thinking about them while they’re gone and all. It’s cute.” 

“I think she’s gay,” Zayn blurts, because the only way she’s gonna get all this out is in staccato explosions. “Gay and doesn't know it, at least. I mean, she has a _prince,_ supposedly, a guy she’s in love with and who’s looking for her…but Lou. She only knew him for one day. And she can hardly remember what he looks like. But women? She talks about them all the time. Notices them from, like, across the room and stares.” 

“She _did_ tell me and Harry about fifty times each how beautiful we are,” Louis muses, exhaling smoke. “But maybe that’s a weird princess-land thing.” 

“I thought so, too, like, maybe girls in Andalasia aren’t affected by this universe’s patriarchy so their complimenting customs are different or something, but it’s more than that. She just flat-out ignores most men. Well, she’s _polite_ to them, but she doesn't crane her neck around to look at them and gush about their hair or their eyes or whatever,” Zayn explains.

“Sounds _quite_ gay, if m’honest,” Louis replies. “Are there, like, lesbians out in…what did you call it? Appalachia?” 

“Andalasia, and I’ve pressed on it a bit, yeah, but she always gets super confused, so maybe not? Or maybe they do, but she’s just never met one. Dunno, Lou, from what she’s told me, it’s this magical fantasy-land where nothing bad ever happens, people fall in love after one day…it’s like a storybook.” 

“Yeah, but gay people aren't bad. We deserve our storybooks, too, and I can’t imagine we just _don’t exist_ in some universe,” Louis scoffs, sounding a little panicked. Louis is the sort of girl who’d get really anxious at the thought of a world with no lesbians. “Maybe Niall is just, I dunno, really sheltered in her castle or whatever. Maybe she just doesn't even know it’s a possibility.” 

“Maybe,” Zayn says hesitantly, not so sure that she likes the expectant, mischievous glint in Louis’s eye, “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“Because! Maybe you should…you know. Show her the ropes,” she grins, waggling her eyebrows. 

Zayn is scandalized. “M’not gonna _seduce_ this innocent girl with a _prince_ , mate. It’d feel like taking advantage.” 

“Christ, I don't mean _sex,_ I mean, like, erm, show her _Desert Hearts._ Tell her about me and H. Make sure girls who love girls are something that’s _on_ her radar…and then maybe test the waters a bit with some, I dunno, G-rated stuff, like hand-holding,” Louis suggests with a series of only somewhat-suggestive finger flourishes. 

Zayn grabs a couch cushion to worry between her hands and sighs, “I feel like it…like it’s not my place. Like I should just sit back and help how I can.” 

“Who says showing her what’s possible isn't _helping?!”_ Louis exclaims, throwing her arms in the air in exasperation. “Look, do you like her?” 

“Yes,” Zayn admits, thinking of the kissing dream, of Niall’s fingers softly and carefully sectioning her hair to braid, the way she longs to hold her close, feel the soft curve of her body as she sleeps, her pillows smelling of flowers. “I might even love her. She makes me feel like I’m in a Jane Austen novel.” 

“Oh, Jesus,” Louis whistles, eyes wide. “I’d give you a hard time, but honestly, m’just so relieved to see you feel something. This is the first time you’ve ever expressed genuine interest in another girl in the whole time I’ve known you. Usually, you just make up weird excuses...was beginning to think you were a robot.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Zayn whines miserably, sinking into the couch. She doesn't want to face Louis, doesn't want to see her expression when she confesses the next true and terrible part. “S’pointless because it could never work. Maybe I only love her because _I know_ that _,_ deep down, it’s impossible.” 

“Oh, bollocks! C’mon, Z. Why? Why can’t it work?” Louis prods, reaching out and grabbing her knee to shake. Zayn pushes her off, not wanting to be touched while she spills her guts. 

“Because! Well, for starters, I’m a no-nonsense business woman, and she’s a literal Disney princess.” 

“Zayn, I love you, but you’re a _high-_ nonsense business women, let’s get real,” Louis declares. She takes another puff thoughtfully, then looks out the window with narrowed eyes. “It might be possible, I mean, where is this so-called prince, yeah? He hasn’t shown up yet, and she’s been living here in this world for almost a month now. The whole ‘I’ve been dreaming of a true love’s kiss’ life he’s offered her might not even be appealing anymore, especially if she’s _gay._ I say give it a shot...you don't want to regret never trying, and if he never comes, you’re just wasting all your time pining.” 

“M’not good enough for her,” Zayn whispers into the cushion, voice muffled to near nothingness. She realizes as she says it that _this,_ this right here, is at the core of every awful thing she’s thinking, the seed of her sinking feeling where Niall is concerned. That even if she _is_ gay, and the prince never comes, and Niall has to stay here, in this universe, that she should have a girlfriend who’s somehow _better_ than whatever Zayn has to offer. Because Niall is fashioned from sunshine and marigolds and the iridescent dust on butterfy wings, and Zayn is a bitter old lesbian who's never even had more than a one-night stand with a girl. Niall deserves the world. 

“Zayn, no offense, but shut the fuck up,” Louis gripes, reaching across the couch to gently kick Zayn’s forearm. “Don’t talk badly about yourself like that! You’re wonderful, you’re a _catch_ , and, if I’m honest, you might objectively be the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen. Don't tell H I said that, she had a whole _period_ of insecurity about you that she’s only _recently_ gotten over.” 

“Really?” Zayn asks, making a face. She knows she’s pretty, but she always thought she wasn't, like, appealing to other lesbians, that she wasn’t obviously gay enough, couldn’t pull off the edgy butch haircuts like Louis could or the zany designer shit like Harry did. “I’ve always thought I looked, too…I dunno, straight. Or boring.” 

“Uh, _no_ , you’re like a fucking goddess, Zayn. Girls are always drooling over you when you let H and I drag you out, you mean you haven't noticed?” 

“They never ask me out!” she reminds her, thinking of how many drinks she has to have in order to work up the courage to talk to girls at clubs, to make the first move since no one ever makes it on her. 

“Er, they’re intimidated, I _promise_. That’s what’s been so nice about this Niall girl, that you were, like, _hanging out_ with someone. You got past that initial, awkward, first date nonsense. God, and to think that all this time I just assumed you didn't date much because none of those girls were good enough for you, like, you were waiting for a real queen. Or, you know, princess, in this case.” 

“No,” Zayn scoffs, frustrated that her eyes are welling up, that her stomach is getting tense and tight and hot because she doesn't know how to accept compliments. “It was never that...s’more because m’afraid of commitment, of, like, letting someone in. M’also afraid I won’t be a good girlfriend ‘cos I work too much, and I haven't had _that_ much sex with other women, I started so _late_ in life, you know? I just...s’fucking scary. Plus, I wasn't a very good _fiancé_ , evenwhen I tried to be.” 

“Babe, that’s because you were engaged to a bloke, _of course_ you weren’t good at it! I mean, you’re never gonna get more experience or confidence with girls if you don't start _dating_ them!Or maybe just recognize that you and Niall _are already_ dating, that you sodding _live together,_ that you pretty much already _have_ a girlfriend, if you can get over this whole ‘woe is me, she's an angel and I'm wretched’ thing,” Louis argues. 

“Okay, I get it,” Zayn sniffs, shuddering as she inhales, wiping her eyes defiantly on the back of her hands. She _hates_ crying in front of people. “Maybe I _could_ get past it, but what do I do about the whole Prince Shawn thing? Or the fact that she’s from Andalasia? It’s gonna be temporary, even if it happens...eventually she’s gonna have to go back to where she came from, right?” 

“Maybe,” Louis shrugs. “Or maybe she won’t. That's the thing about, like, every relationship, yeah? You jump in, and you don’t _know_ if it's gonna work out or last forever…even if the girl isn’t a princess.” 

“Easy for you to say, you’re basically married,” Zayn grumbles, furrowing her brow. 

“Er, yeah, _now_ I am, but when H and I started dating? I spent the whole first _year_ scared shitless that she was gonna leave because of the whole fake-boyfriend thing. Or because she wouldn’t want to deal with the football world. But she stayed, we’re madly in love, and we’re gonna get married. Like, relationships are always a risk, but how are you ever going to _know_ if you don’t try?” 

Zayn mumbles wordlessly, momentarily robbed of retorts because she _knows_ that Louis’s right. Princess or not, girls leave. Things don’t always work out. But that doesn't necessarily mean they aren’t worth going for anyway. “Okay, fuck it, you’re right.” 

“Damn right, I’m right, now go win a jousting match or something to impress your fair maiden,” Louis suggests, finishing off the last of her blunt and coughing. “God, I hope between my scatterbrained girlfriend and your princess almost-girlfriend, the Beverly Center is still standing.” 

Zayn hopes so, too. After all, she has to have a conversation with Niall about some things. 

—-

About a half-hour later, after Zayn and Louis have broken out the wine, the other two girls arrive back home, safe and intact and toting several Forever 21 bags. “Hi, I missed you!” Niall announces, sweeping in and tackle-hugging Zayn, wearing a pair of very cute black jeans cuffed over her ankles and a tucked-in navy blouse with little white horses printed all over it. 

“Hi, and this is a very Harry outfit, did she pick it out?” Zayn asks, crossfaded and giggling as she plucks at the sleeves of the new shirt. “Looks cuter on you.” 

“I had to make some suggestions, otherwise it would have been nothing but floral maxi dresses. Which are fine, but you can only have so many floral maxi dresses,” Harry drawls from the kitchen, where she’s hoisting bags onto the counter. “We had a blast, by the way.” 

“Did you?” Zayn asks, pulling Niall down onto the couch, on top of her and Louis, who yelps and snatches up the bag of crisps she recently opened so they won’t get crushed. “Harry wasn’t too micromanage-y?” she jokes, knowing full well that Harry couldn’t micromanage if her life depended on it. 

Harry walks in, looking a little frazzled, her hair everywhere as she collapses onto Louis’s lap. (Not unlike how Niall just collapsed onto Zayn’s. Maybe she’s high, but the similarity seems like a revelation.) “We really _did_ have fun. I also had to drag her out of the fountain before security caught her swimming in it and kicked us both out. Best day of my life.” 

“Hey!” Louis says, affronted as she squeezes Harry’s side. “I’m the best day of your life.” 

“You’re tipsy...where’s the wine so I can catch up?” she asks, twisting around and placing a soft, slow kiss on Louis’s lips. It’s a pretty intimate kiss for Zayn’s couch, but Harry and Louis are like that, so it seems stupid to ask them to stop. Plus, Zayn’s curious about Niall’s reaction, so she watches her closely, wishing she knew how to read whatever was happening there on her ruddy cheeks, in her wide eyes. 

“You want some wine, love?” Zayn asks, reaching up and petting Niall’s blonde curls. She looks so cute in regular-person clothes that actually fit, a new bra poking out over the unbuttoned V of her shirt as she shifts around to face Zayn, beaming. 

“Please,” she says. Zayn stares at her lips until she blinks, thinking she hasn’t been quite this drunk around Niall yet and _certainly_ not this high. She feels a little out of control, like she wants to be so _close,_ feel the warmth of her skin against her cheek, bury her face in her hair like Louis’s doing to Harry right now. It would be easy, and what’s more, she thinks that Niall would _allow_ it, even like it. She’s cuddly like that. 

“One of Eduardo’s fuck buddies is in a match right now...mind if I put it on the telly, Z? I like to keep up with my fake boyfriend’s real boyfriends,” Louis explains, reaching around Harry to fumble for the remote on the coffee table. 

“Go for it,” Zayn tells her, deciding that she can’t stand it any longer, so she shifts closer to Niall and slides an arm around her back. As expected, Niall makes a happy sound and settles down on her, head pillowed on her chest, eyes sliding closed. 

“Shopping made me tired,” she yawns. “Can I just sleep here?” 

“Of course,” Zayn murmurs back, petting her hair, her back, rubbing gently at her shoulder blades. “Anything.” 

She very stubbornly keeps her eyes fixed on the TV, even though she fucking hates footie, if only so she doesn't have to catch Louis’s no-doubt _delighted_ eyes across the couch. 

Niall snores, and the other girls stay a few more lazy hours before Louis sobers up enough to drive them home. 

Once they’re gone and Zayn has wiggled out from under Niall’s sweet-smelling deadweight, she half-heartedly cleans up the kitchen, so many things that Louis said earlier replaying in her head. She's loading the dishwasher when her phone buzzes against the counter, making her jump. It’s a text from Harry that reads, _so Niall talked about you A LOT today. when she tried on clothes she’d ask if i thought you’d like it. and she just brought you up bunches. Lou told me to tell u this. night night!_

Zayn stares at it for a long time, volleying between elation and fear, and back again. 

—-

The next few days are a blur of Zayn working up the courage to talk to Niall about the potential of lesbianism in Andalasia and then immediately chickening out. Eventually, she manages to ask her what she thinks of Harry and Louis, hoping that Niall will launch into a full-scale expose of her #confusedfeelings and/or enthusiastic support so that Zayn can get a read on what her perception of gay stuff actually is. “So, did you, erm, like my friends?” Zayn asks her over breakfast almost a week later, stirring some honey into her tea and watching Niall nervously over the rim. Niall’s currently sawing wood, in her kitchen, wearing a floral maxi dress. It’s incomprehensibly charming. “Oh, my gosh, yes, I _loved_ them! Harry’s so good at shopping. And she has amazing hair. And she’s so pretty. And so is Louis...they’re both just wonderful and nice and gorgeous,” she sighs, propping herself up on her saw and wiping lumber dust from her sweaty brow. She’s getting decent arm muscles as a result of this new woodworking habit, and Zayn now has more birdhouses than she knows what to do with, but she doesn't even care because seeing that growing bicep definition, seeing Niall’s cheeks red and her eyes bright every time she presents Zayn with a new creation is totally worth it. Zayn’s staring, trying to think up a way to bring up Harry and Louis’s relationship when Niall shocks her by beating her to it. “Are they married?” “What?!” Zayn asks, nearly dropping her tea. “Harry and Louis are obviously in love, so are they married yet?” she asks, trading her saw for some sandpaper before sitting barefoot on the linoleum to sand the edges of her newly chopped planks. “Oh! Well, no, not yet, but they might as well be...they’ve been together forever. It’s sort of complicated, though, because of Louis’s job...she can’t, like...publicly be with Harry, so they’re waiting on the marriage bit...I guess,” Zayn stammers, feeling weird about glossing over the whole homophobia-in-the-footballing-world thing because she doesn't know how much of that Niall is ready to hear. Niall’s supersensitive; she cries when Joey doesn’t get an audition on _Friends_ or if one of her bird pals hits the window and gets dizzy, so Zayn doesn’t feel prepared to deal with the amount of tears that systematic homophobia might warrant. Not before work, anyway. “Wait, why can’t she be with her? If they want to get married, they just should...hiding a love like theirs is such a waste! People should be able to see it, be inspired by it,” Niall argues, gesturing with her sandpaper. “I know, but the world is…it sucks. I don't know how else to say it, but this isn't Andalasia, we don’t have rainbows and hugs and true love after a day,” Zayn explains hurriedly, wondering what she got herself into, knowing that this isn’t the sort of conversation to have in the dwindling minutes before she has to get on the metro. She’s frustrated, not at Niall, necessarily, but at her purity, her naiveté, her simple solutions that could never work because she’s not in her Disney-princess world anymore, she’s here, in stupid LA. “Louis and Harry are both girls, and it shouldn’t be like this at all, but people like them…like me,” she adds on a whim, voice shaking, “aren’t allowed to have the same lives as people like you, people who marry princes and shit.” Niall’s eyes get wide, and then she’s standing, and Zayn is one hundred percent sure that she’s about to start bawling over the cruelty of humanity or something. Her chin wobbles, her cheeks get even pinker, but instead of tears, her eyes flash with something else, something hard and resolute as she announces, “You make me so angry sometimes! You think you know exactly what Andalasia’s like, or that I must be some kind of idiot who doesn't understand pain or injustice because that’s where I’m from, and it...it makes me feel like you don’t really see me! Or that you see me as this ditzy simpleton who just sings and eats and is cheerful all the time and never feels any hurt or pain living in this shitty world that I didn’t ask to be dumped into in the first place! Well, guess what, Zayn! I’m here to tell you that…that…that you don’t know me or what I feel as well as you think you do! ” she shouts, turning on her heel and stomping into Zayn’s room, where she shuts the door and audibly collapses onto the bed to cry. Zayn is dumbfounded. In all her imagined versions of discussing lesbian stuff or homophobia with Niall, she never anticipated it would end in her getting yelled at and Niall crying in her bed, unless she, like, accidentally kissed Niall, and Niall freaked out or something. This is totally different, though. She doesn't know what to do, she doesn’t know what she _can_ do in the fifteen minutes before she has to go to work. She just knows that she has to talk to her, has to tell her that she _does_ see her, or at least she wants to. She doesn't want to reduce her to some two-dimensional character in a fairytale, she wants to know her. She wants to know it all. “Niall?” she asks gently, rapping her knuckles on her door, even though she noticed that it isn’t locked. “Babes, m’sorry, I really am. Will you open the door so we can talk a bit before I head to work?” She hears Niall hiccup before blurting, “All you care about is work! Just go.” Zayn heart clenches, and she thinks about giving Niall her space, but at the same time, she doesn't want to leave her like this, doesn’t want to walk out the door and confirm all of Niall’s worst suspicions that she doesn’t actually care, that she doesn’t actually know her. “M’not just gonna leave you here, crying. I fucked up, and I want to make a proper apology. And if that takes longer than fifteen minutes, then I’ll be late to work...it’s fine, our friendship is more important to me, yeah?” Niall sniffles for a moment before mumbling, “Yeah, okay, you can come in.” She sounds more tired than anything else, like the anger drained right out of her, and Zayn breathes in a sigh of relief as she gently pushes the door open. In her nylons and pencil skirt, she pads across the floor to gingerly sit on the bed beside Niall. “Hi, love. M’really, _really_ sorry. I think I got snappy when I was talking about Harry’n’Lou because I get…I dunno, sort of defensive about them. Homophobia, or when people don’t accept the love between two girls or two boys or whatever, affects me personally, every day, because I’m a lesbian. Having to explain the basics…I guess it can hurt.” “I’m sorry, too,” Niall says in response, shoulders shaking as she turns her face into her pillow and sobs a bit. “I’m…I dunno, m’totally overreacting, and I know it. M’mad, and I don’t even really know _why_ I’m mad. I just…I feel like you see me as a…as a dumb child sometimes, and it hurts my feelings because it’s not like I know _nothing_ about your world. I’m learning, and I ask questions, and I figure things out. But I guess I can be insensitive about certain things without realizing it, and that’s not okay,” she gets out, and Zayn thinks that she’s done, but then she raggedly inhales and starts trembling again, eyes scrunched up and tears rolling down her cheeks. “And I’m just so sad about Harry and Louis! That’s so unfair! They’re as in love as anyone I've ever seen, more in love, even, and the fact that they….that they can’t—,” she starts bawling again, throwing herself onto her stomach and squeezing Zayn’s pillow. “Everything makes me so sad! Them! That I can’t remember what Shawn looks like and don’t even care! That you’re going to work and m’gonna miss you! That my stomach and back hurt so weirdly! That, that—,” she never manages to say what else is bothering her, she just starts crying again, and Zayn feels so confused and horrible and overwhelmed that she unzips her skirt so that it’s not cutting into her tummy and crawls up onto the bed to spoon Niall. “Shh, shh, s’okay, babe, I got you, you can just cry,” she whispers, burying her face in Niall’s ponytail and winding an arm around her middle, gently squeezing. She’s reeling from the bit about the prince, that Niall can’t remember what Shawn looks like and doesn’t even care…what does that mean? Her mind is racing and Niall is rocking in time with her sobs, which are so loud and wet and all-encompassing for a moment that Zayn can’t do anything but shush at her, lips against her ear. In the process of holding Niall, Zayn’s knee accidentally pushes up her floral dress, and she notices as it brushes across her thigh that there’s a bit that’s wet, sticky. Blushing, she recoils, but then what Niall said about her stomach hits her, and she sits up, scanning the green and pink print of her dress for tell-tale red. “This is gonna sound mad if you don't, but do you…bleed? Every month? In Andalasia?” “What?” Niall asks, voice shaking, her sobs somewhat subsiding as Zayn rubs up her flank reassuringly. “Bleed?” “Yeah…you know. Like, bleed. From your—,” her voice cuts out as she finds an enormous red splotch, still warm. “You poor thing, no wonder you’re so emotional. You’ve got your period!” “Am I—is it contagious?” Niall yelps, tears forgotten at least momentarily as she sits up, face white with shock as she stares at the blood. “Did that come from me?” “Oh, wow, this...this is gonna be a lot to explain. Okay, erm, I’m taking the day off work to take care of you, yeah? This is normal, and you’re safe, but it sucks and it hurts and it’s probably gonna freak you out since it’s the first time. It sure as hell freaked _me_ out, but I was twelve at the time,” she explains. A combination of relief and sympathy is washing over body, making her feel achy and giddy, so thrilled to take care of Niall for a while day, to help her feel spoiled, special. “There’s no delicate way to put it, babes,” Zayn winces. “You’re bleeding from your cunt, and you will for a week...it’s so you can have a baby. Or, if we’re being accurate, because you didn’t have a baby. Here, lemme find you a YouTube video.” Niall collapses back onto the bed, looking pale and sick, but also taking it in stride, considering. “Is that why it feels like my insides are being ripped out?” “Yeah, but s’fine, we have medicine for that. Here, watch this,” she offers, handing Niall her phone and heading to the loo to get some pads and tampons and ibuprofen. “Gonna make you a hot water bottle and get you back in your PJs.” Zayn grabs a clean pair of underwear (a pair of her own, long since stained and threadbare, because she can’t bear the idea of Niall bleeding on one of the new, frilly pairs of pants she got with Harry) and slaps a pad onto the crotch before turning on the shower, grateful for something to do, so many tasks, concrete and predictable, so she doesn't have to think about anything else that’s happening here, brewing under the surface. A prince’s forgotten face. Niall’s outburst. Her own beating heart. How wild it is that she’s willing to stay home from work for someone else’s pain when she’ll power through her own and show up even when she has a migraine. After guiding Niall to the shower, throwing her stained dress and duvet into the wash, and putting in an Instacart order for chocolate and frozen pizza, she sits down on the bed, body whirring with adrenaline, stomach in knots like she’s the one bleeding. —- The day is slow and surreal. Zayn lies in bed with Niall for most of it, spooning her close and gently kneading thumbs into her lower back with some CBD oil that Louis gave her for when she gets sore. Niall isn’t being a total baby about cramps, mostly she seems shaken up that something weird and unanticipated is happening to her body, and Zayn doesn’t blame her. She tries to be as comforting as possible, sharing every funny or embarrassing period story that she’s accumulated over the years to make Niall laugh, putting on their favourite _Friends_ episodes and quoting the lines she has memorized. Niall snuggles her fiercely and whimpers when she leaves to get tea or snacks or to use the loo, and she feels so warm and special and needed that it nearly makes her cry with joy. Maybe she’s gonna start her period, too. Or maybe she’s just in love. At some point in the afternoon, Niall nuzzles into her neck and says, “You know the real reason, I think, why I got so mad earlier? Besides the whole moon-induced hormone mess?” “Why?” Zayn asks, eyelids heavy, heart beat steady and slow under Niall’s ear. She’s so solid and comfortable on her chest, she fits so nicely in her arms that Zayn just sort of wants to die here, burning up in her heat. “I think it was because you said, ‘girls like Harry and Louis and me’ and then ‘girls like you.’ And I get why, I do...we’re different, from different worlds and all. But I think hearing you say it like that felt like you were driving this huge wedge between us. And it made me so sad to think about being so far away from you.” She’s quiet for a moment, and Zayn’s eyes fly open, her stomach tightening and her pulse speeding up. Niall must be able to notice, but instead of pointing it out, she just continues, “I know it’s dumb, but it’s true.” “It’s not dumb, you’re…” _wonderful and complex and more human and nuanced than I ever gave you credit for, and I’m sorry. You’re more than a princess and more than a character, and you’re allowed to be moody and angry. You’re allowed to be anything._ “You’re really sweet, is all.” “ _You_ are. And patient, too. I realize it’s probably a lot of work to teach someone like me to live in your world,” she sighs, yawning, breath smelling sweet and salty like the chocolate bar she finished moments ago. “So, thank you...I just wanted you to know.” Zayn sifts her fingers through Niall’s ponytail and wills her heart to slow down as she asks, “So, earlier. You, ehr, mentioned…about Shawn.” “Ugh,” Niall groans, hiding her face in Zayn’s robe. “Don’t remind me. I was yelling nonsense, all sorts of things I didn’t mean.” “Oh,” Zayn mumbles, fidgeting, wide awake now. “So you haven't forgotten the face of your betrothed? That was just, like, a figure of speech?” She’s trying to be cheeky, but she’s in no state to pull it off, so instead it comes out ragged, hurt. Maybe even a little sharp. “No! Well, ugh,” Niall groans again, rolling off Zayn’s chest to face the wall. “I…I have to tell you something, actually, but I’m worried you’re going to be really, really angry at me, and I’m scared.” Zayn’s blood ices over so fast that her fingers tingle, her scalp prickles. “I won’t be angry,” she breathes, reaching out to squeeze Niall’s shoulder but stopping before she makes contact. She’s worried that every touch is a giveaway, an announcement of everything she’s feeling. _Could never be proper mad at you, m’in love with you. All that will happen is me getting hurt, thrown away. Not angry_. “Or if I am, I won’t yell or anything. We’ll figure it out.” Niall takes a deep breath and shifts onto her back, squeezing her eyes shut so tightly that the welled-up tears squeeze out and roll down her cheeks, beautiful and crystalline. Zayn wants to kiss them up. “Promise?” she asks, voice wobbly. “Promise,” Zayn says, crossing her heart. Niall’s eyes stay closed as she takes a deep breath and confesses, “So...the truth is, for four whole days, I’ve known that Shawn is here, in LA, and that he’s looking for me. And for four whole days, I haven't told you, or anyone, or tried to go find him.” She lets it sink in, face scrunched up as if braced for impact, and Zayn sits there, blinking. Shawn. Niall’s prince, who she’s engaged to, her alleged true love…is in town. And Niall has been staying here, making birdhouses for Zayn. It doesn't make sense. “How...how do you even know that?” she asks, shaking her head in disbelief. “A few weeks ago, I told all my bird friends to keep an eye out, and one of them spotted him running around downtown. Apparently, he’s been staying at someone named Clifton’s place? And my friend, she’s a sparrow, she’s gone back a few times for crumbs, and it sounds like him, fits his description, or what I remember of it. But I...I haven’t done a single thing. I've just stayed here, wondering why I don’t want to go back to Andalasia.” Zayn’s glad she got over the bird thing a long time ago because it might have made this already difficult-to-process information even harder to swallow. “A…little birdie told you, wow,” she mumbles to herself, staring at the duvet and trying to keep a dangerous well of hope from bubbling up into her chest. Niall doesn't want to go back. Niall’s avoiding her true love. Niall didn’t want to be grouped in opposition to Zayn and Harry and Louis. Niall…might be confused…about her sexuality? Or something. Zayn isn't sure, but whatever is happening, she certainly isn’t angry about it. She might even be elated. “Do you know…why…you don’t want to see him yet?” Niall makes an anguished sound and hides her face in her hands before looking plaintively to Zayn. “Yes...well, sort of,” she amends. “But I’m worried you’ll freak out and hate me.” “Nyliana, I could never, ever, not even in a million years, hate you. M’not angry about any of this, okay? M’just trying to understand,” Zayn says, voice firm, eyes locked on Niall’s, holding her pink-rimmed, watery gaze. “Oh, no,” Niall blinks rapidly, turning her gaze away. “You can’t look at me that way. It makes me stupid.” “What?! Look at you how?” Zayn yelps, floored. “Like that! Like you just did! All sincere and warm…your eyes are too huge and too dark and too beautiful and too molasses-y. It’s terrifying, it makes my stomach hurt,” she blathers nonsensically. “Ah! I’m saying too much, I hate having my period!” “Niall, babes,” Zayn says, finally reaching out and touching her arm, thumbing into the ditch of her elbow where she’s warm and her blood is thudding fiercely, trying to pin her down, keep her close. She feels a little crazy, like none of this is happening. Like Niall’s period is somehow breaking down the fiber of reality and that anything can happen. “S’okay, I won’t be angry, I—” “It’s because I want to stay with you! I don’t want all this to be over! The second I let Shawn know where I am, we’ll go back to the portal to Andalasia, and I…I’ll never see—,” Niall suddenly bursts into tears and throws herself at Zayn, squeezing her lung-crushingly tight as if the mere thought of their inevitable separation might take Zayn away forever. “I’m not going anywhere,” Zayn chokes out, hands all over Niall's back, under her shirt, even, not caring for a moment what that might mean, just needing the heat of her skin uninhibited. “God, Niall, I...how could you think that I’d be angry at you for wanting to stay? I’ve been going mad about it for at least two weeks...imagining you finding him and leaving me has had me sick, I wanted to die every time I thought about it,” she admits, stunned to feel tears springing to her eyes, wet and hot. “I don’t want you to leave.” “Really?” Niall wheezes into her neck, squirming in her arms like she can’t get close enough, knee pushes between Zayn’s legs, solid and warm. Zayn’s flimsy silk robe is coming apart between them due to the friction, and she would panic if she wasn’t so thrilled that Niall won’t be hitching the first ride back to Andalasia, that she’s happy with their setup, with living together. Everything feels surreal, and Zayn’s clothes coming off feels like simply another dream-like, hazy consequence of the day. “Really,” she assures her, cupping the back of her head, trying hard to just lie there passively as Niall rubs all over her like a puppy. “I love having you here. You can stay however long you like, I mean it.” “But…god, poor Shawn, he must be so worried,” Niall mumbles, beginning to pull away, much to Zayn’s disappointment. “I should at least send a bird to tell him that I’m okay, that I’m not…m’not ready.” She sits up fully, and Zayn tries to get her robe back over her chest in time, but that doesn’t happen, so she frantically covers her dark nipples and tiny tits under her palms as Niall stares down at her, wide-eyed, cheeks visibly flushing. “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…,” Niall starts, voice trailing off as her hands drop in slow motion to the rapid rise and fall of Zayn’s ribcage, her warm, rosy fingers ghosting over the bones in her sternum like she’s in a trance. Zayn stops breathing, so Niall’s fingers linger, looking so pale against the olive shade of Zayn’s skin. “You’re…you’re so beautiful,” Niall marvels, almost to herself, tipping forward so that the loose waves falling freely from her pony tail spill over her shoulder like water. Zayn stares, transfixed, wondering if she really has been dreaming this whole time. Because she feels drunk and because you can do anything in a dream, she lets her hands fall away from her tits, exposing them to Niall while she looks up at her with wide, pleading eyes. _Here I am_ , she thinks, heart pounding, stomach turning where Niall’s straddling her, shifting and gasping as Zayn lies under her, vulnerable, nipples tightening in the open air. “Oh,” Niall whispers, pretty mouth parted, cheeks so red that they’d be hot to the touch if Zayn pressed her knuckles to them. “So beautiful, so lovely.” And then she tentatively, carefully raises her fingers and grazes them over the curve of Zayn’s tits, from the outside to the peak of her nipples, slowly, experimentally. “I’m sorry,” she says as she does it, as if Zayn isn’t wondering if she died and ascended to heaven. “I’ll stop if you want me to...do you want me to stop?” “No,” Zayn tells her, alarmed at how thick her voice sounds, how low and soft. She’s unbelievably turned on just from this, from Niall rubbing the lightest circles into her hard nipples, the touch so tender and exploratory, unlike anything Zayn’s ever felt in her life. “You can do whatever you want.” “I’ve thought...I’ve thought about this before. Wondered about it, I mean, about what you might look like, how you’d be the same or different. You’re smaller. Thinner. I can see some of your bones, and I want….I don’t know...to protect them, like a bird.” “You’re such an angel,” Zayn moans, eyes sliding shut in bliss, time slowing down so much that it feels like it’s stopped moving all together, like the earth paused its rotation to allow something this miraculous to happen. “You, protecting me. Sweet princess.” Niall squirms on top of her, and it makes Zayn flinch, squeeze her thighs together, stunned by the sloppy wetness she can already feel. God, at what? At having a girl in sweats and a pad so big that it crackles as she sits on her while she’s touching her tits for three seconds with featherlight brushes of her fingertips? Zayn feels so easy, like this must be magic. Or what being in love is like. “I want to kiss them,” Niall tells her, eyes flitting up to Zayn’s and almost black with pupil, her gaze sharp and panicked. “Is that crazy?” Zayn shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “It’s not crazy, not at all. I’d like it so much, and I…you feel really good, like, insanely good. I just…I don’t know if you know what you’re doing, and I don’t want you to do anything that you’ll regret, yeah?” Zayn babbles, though she’s reluctant to cover herself up again, her hands feel rooted to the bed, clutching in her sheets like they're a lifeline back to the real world. “Are you listening?” “I’m listening, yes,” Niall affirms, snatching her hands back. “But I want you to know that I’m not totally ignorant about this sort of thing. Like, I know that it would be a betrayal to Shawn if I were to keep touching you...but I also know that I don’t care because this is real, and that….that was a fantasy. A storybook. I don’t know,” she says, tears welling in her eyes again, glimmering there on the lower lids like glitter as she sniffles. “This is true love...I realize that. And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way about me, I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t be surprised or blame you or anything, after all, I’m not exactly the sort of girl you deserve to have. I don’t know a lot of things, I sing too much, I invited cockroaches into your flat that one time, and—” “Niall,” Zayn makes herself interrupt, heart beating so hard and so fast that she’s worried it might explode if she keeps letting Niall talk like this. She finally finds it in herself to unlatch her grip on the sheets and reach for Niall’s wrists instead, encircling them gently to pull her hands back down where they were. Niall spreads her trembling palm over the wild thud of Zayn’s heart, breath catching. “If you love me, you can kiss my nipples. Or my lips. You can have whatever you want from me, however fast or slow, because I love you, too. The true-love sort, not the we-met-yesterday-and-we’re-a-prince-and-a-princess-so-we-have-to sort.” Niall makes a wordless sound, face crumpling, and then her hands are cupping Zayn’s cheeks as she dips down, and the world smells like honeysuckle and chocolate, and she’s pressing her soft, tear-sticky lips to Zayn’s. They’re kissing for real, heavy and sweet and deep, heaven and fireworks and angels singing and swan feathers, all of that. When Zayn’s tongue flicks out to taste, Niall makes a surprised, thrilled sound before opening her mouth and giving her full weight to Zayn, spreading out on top of her as kissing becomes proper snogging. Zayn cannot fucking believe it, but she's not complaining. She’s afraid to come up for air, so she doesn’t, she just lets herself get dizzy, rolls Niall onto her side, and sinks her hand wrist-deep into her hair to more fully kiss her pink, sugary mouth, swallowing her every hungry gasp. “Oh,” Niall gasps at some point, head falling back, fingers dancing up Zayn bare, heaving ribcage. “I thought...I didn’t realize it could be like this.” “Like what?” Zayn asks, tracing over the bones in Niall’s face, down her neck, over the flicker of her pulse. She’s still wearing all her clothes, but it must be getting warm under there, judging by her spectacular flush, the sheen of her perspiration. Niall confirms her suspicion by clarifying, “Like…like you're burning up. Or melting. Or falling apart, all at the same time, in the most wonderful way. I don’t know…it feels like my heart is going to beat itself right out of my chest because it wants to be in yours instead.” “I think you should write poetry,” Zayn tells her, ducking close and kissing the corner of her smiling mouth. “Because everything you say sort of makes me want to cry. In the most wonderful way, to quote a poet. Meaning you,” she tries to clarify, talking too much, so high on the heady reality of having Niall close, her spit on her lips, skin under her palms. “I think you should let me kiss your nipples,” Niall counters, brushing her fingers over Zayn’s chest again, soft and trembly like a secret. “I think,” Zayn says, tugging her robe back on with flourish, making Niall pout, “that before you kiss me anywhere that’s not my face, you should send a bird to your prince and tell him the wedding’s off.” As she says it, she realizes that they haven’t exactly talked about this part yet: the future, whether or not Niall is still planning on going back to Andalasia at some point, if Zayn’s some experimental foray or if this is her life. “That is, if the wedding actually _is_ off,” she adds, pulling away a bit, pursing her lips. Niall chases her, kisses her, forces her to swallow her doubt. “The wedding is most definitely off. I deserve…true love, not whatever we have in Andalasia. And Shawn does, too. Maybe he can find it if he stays and looks.” “Does that mean you're staying here with me?” Zayn breathes, not daring to hope, chewing her lips in anticipation. “If you’ll let me,” Niall replies, blinking her long, tear-clotty lashes. “I promise I’ll get a job, too. Or sell some birdhouses or something. I’ll help out, I just want—” Zayn kisses her fiercely, hands all over her face, her neck. “Yes, yes, yes, you can stay, please stay. Move in with me. Now, where’s Shawn? You said he’s staying with someone?” “The sparrow said Clifton’s,” Niall murmurs, distracted as she plays with the sash of Zayn’s robe, toying with the silk in a way that makes Zayn want to forget the bird and untie it all over again. “Cliftons…Clifton’s Cafeteria?” Zayn realizes, making a face. Clifton’s is a weird, multilevel building downtown that serves food but can’t quite be called a restaurant. More like a museum of oddities and/or a taxidermy collection masquerading as a restaurant. It has, like, four bars and a million hidden rooms, and one time she and some colleagues got drunk there after work, sitting on chairs made of cow horns at the base of an honest-to-god tree in the middle of the building. It was wild. And the exact sort of place someone from Andalasia would take up residence; Zayn imagines a pompous guy with nice hair and a sword traipsing around the stuffed mountain lions and sleeping under all the antlers. “There’s, erm…a place downtown called Clifton’s Cafeteria. Is that it?” “Maybe?!” Niall speculates, hopping out of bed and wasting no time throwing the window open to call a bird. After a minute during which she has a frantic chirping and cooing exchange with a mourning dove, she comes back, hair a mess, cheeks pink. “She’s on her way to go check Clifton’s Cafeteria to see if that’s where he is. If so, we can set up a time to meet…I’d like to tell him in person, I think. Seems only decent.” Zayn loves her so fucking much that it hurts, so she opens her arms, loving how Niall falls into them, clumsy and sweet. “Let's hope that dove is a speedy flier...I’d really like to have my nipples kissed.” Niall squeaks, and then they’re kissing again, and nothing has ever felt so fucking magical in all of Zayn’s life. 

\---

Epilogue: one year later 

As they hurtle up PCH toward Malibu in the back seat of an Uber, Zayn fusses over the dress she’s wearing, fiddling with the neck, which seems too low now that she’s gained a bit of weight and actually has honest-to-god tits. They seem obvious, here, pressed together, and she keeps looking down and staring at them, wondering if it’s too much for someone else’s big day. 

Her gaze skitters over to Niall, who’s sitting beside her and playing on her mobile, hair up in a towering beehive, knees disappearing in mounds of lavender tafetta, and as she smiles fondly, she feels her whole body soften and melt at the sight of her. There’s no way she’s going to be too much, not next to her girlfriend, who’s wearing a spectacular dress that she made herself. It’s probably as big (if not bigger) than the dress Harry’s wearing, and Harry’s one of the brides. It’s charming, though, and she knows Harry and Louis won’t mind, that they’ll think it’s hilarious and cute that Niall outdressed them at their own wedding. 

Niall catches her looking and shoots her a curious face. “What?!” 

“Nothing,” Zayn grins, reaching over and finding her leg in all those layers of fabric, squeezing before kissing her on the cheek. “Just thinking about how much I love you, about how cute you’re gonna be at our wedding.” 

Niall makes a delighted sound and shifts closer, or as close as she can get with such a gigantic skirt. They aren’t formally engaged, not yet, but they talk about their wedding and their future and everything they want to do and have together all the time, so they might as well be. Zayn can hardly believe it, that something so good happened to her, that the fabric of the universe allowed someone from another dimension to find her because she was meant to be found. That love itself is interdimensional. It’s a miracle, pretty much, and she’s still not used to it, even a whole year later. 

“Think H and Lou are nervous?” Niall asks idly, playing with Zayn’s fingers. “Not for anything specific, like, it’s so public. They've only been out to their football people for a few months and now a wedding…it must be a little weird.” 

“Nah, I think they’re fine...I think they’re really excited to just be themselves, finally,” Zayn muses. “Have you heard from Shawn lately? Is he coming?” 

“He’s still in Louis’s fake ex-boyfriend’s entourage of lovers, so if he’s invited, he’ll be there,” she giggles. “I’m sort of excited to see him, to see how he’s changed now that he’s, like…a West Hollywood yacht boy or whatever he is. It’ll be nice, I think, to see each other now that we’re ourselves, too.” 

“Your evolved forms, like Pokemon,” Zayn jokes. 

“Like what?” Niall asks with her eyes all wide and baffled, and Zayn snorts because she loves it when they stumble across a new thing that Niall’s never heard of, though it happens less and less frequently these days. 

“I’ll show you when we get home,” she promises, leaning in and kissing Niall hard, mussing up her lip gloss just as the Uber pulls up at the venue. “You ready, babe?” 

“I am,” Niall says, kissing her back, eyes half-lidded and hazy and glittery. “Or should I say…I do?” she adds, waggling her eyebrows. And it should be dorky or embarrassing, but instead, Zayn’s heart just feels like bursting. _I do, too,_ she thinks.


End file.
